The Senator representing Kaduna Central in the National Assembly, Shehu Sani, has kicked against the bill currently in the House of Representatives which seeks to regulate the activities of non-governmental and civil society organisations in Nigeria.

According to Sani, the bill would be abused by those in government when it becomes law.

The controversial bill, which is sponsored by a member of the House of Representatives, Umar Buba Jubril, is tagged: “The Bill for An Act to Provide for the Establishment of the Non-Governmental Organisations Regulatory Commission for the Supervision, Coordination and Monitoring of Non-Governmental Organisations, Civil Society Organisations, etc, in Nigeria and for Related Matters.”

Sani, in a Facebook post, maintained that it was dangerous to support the bill.

He said: “The increasing cases of human rights abuses and intolerance to divergent views across the country make it dangerous to endorse or support any bill aimed at ‘regulating the activities of the NGOs’.

“I will stand against this bill to protect and preserve our fundamental rights to freedom of expression and of assembly.

“The tendency of the Bill when it becomes law to be abused by people in the position of power is high.”

Which bill is senseless. The sponsor of the bill is more intelligent. There lies accusations that some NGO are giving food items to both victims of insurgency as well as the insurgents. In line with that, their activities needs to be checkmated and regulated.

I am not sure you got this right Shehu, if there is no bill to legitimise regulation how would you checkmate the activities of NGO's? There is no point being myopic, there are many NGO's whose activities needs looking into.

Who told you that there is presently no law regulating activities of NGOs? You people blindly supporting the Bill should please get a draft of it and read and see the manner of control being proposed before you begin to harp your support for it.